In all, 13 New Orleans public schools clear bar for return to local control

Having achieved a school performance score of at least 80 in the state's accountability system for the past two years, these schools can now decide if they want to exit the state-run Recovery School District.

A total of 13 public schools in New Orleans now face a decision that few public schools ever get to make on their own: which school district do I want to be a part of? Having achieved a school performance score of at least 80 in the state's accountability system for the past two years, these schools can now decide if they want to exit the state-run Recovery School District and go back under the Orleans Parish School Board, the local elected body that used to run the entire public school system for the city.

It's only the second year that any school in the Recovery District has had that choice since the state takeover that followed Hurricane Katrina. A handful of schools qualified last year, but none decided to jump districts, concerned about how the switch might affect everything from funding, to building assignments to their own freedom of action.

Since then, the school board has stepped up efforts to assuage those concerns, establishing a charter school office and hiring a deputy superintendent to facilitate talks with individual schools. That official, Kathleen Padian, has said that she expects the first group of schools to make the jump this year, although she has not said exactly how many or which ones.

Any school that wants to make a move will have to act quickly if it's going to happen for the next academic year. All of the qualifying schools are independent charters -- funded publicly but operating more or less on their own -- and would remain so under the school board. Their own individual charter boards, which are appointed rather than elected, would have to vote to come back before Dec. 1 and then negotiate a new charter contract with the local district. The move would also need approval from the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, or BESE.

One important hitch for all of these schools: elections scheduled for next month could conceivably leave them considering whether to return to an almost entirely different slate of board members than those serving now. And that new board will choose the next superintendent to lead the district.

For any school that is on the fence and waiting for the election to shake out, the possibility of some races going into a runoff could further complicate things, since runoff elections are scheduled for Dec. 8 -- after the deadline to make a decision on returning to the board.